"Conservatives"

[fpb]

http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/british-mp-urges-government-to-force-churches-into-same-sex-unions?utm_source=LifeSiteNews.com+Daily+Newsletter&utm_campaign=4aa5467bd0-LifeSiteNews_com_Intl_Headlines09_08_2011&utm_medium=email

What is breathtaking is that no British news medium seems to have given this any attention.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Now let us practice some reason. If you say that "there are no historical reasons to convince anyone of the Catholic claims", it is quite enough to disprove your claim to say: "Yes there are, for I am a historian, and they have convinced ME." I am not saying that I am right or wrong in taking this view of the universe; I have however just proved that the sweeping claim that a person of moderate intelligence cannot be converted to Catholicism by the study of history is just plain wrong. That is, of course, unless you want to argue that I am a moron or an ignoramus. Which you very well might, as you have just said that I am "unworthy of rational argument".

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

But there is no reason to say, given history, that your viewpoint must be right because the Catholic argument is so strong that anyone who HAS moderate intelligence should be converted to it.

My comment about "rational argument" should be read alongside my opinion that one should argue without being personally abusive. If you feel the need to be aggressive (your word, not mine), to be honest I'm not certain I feel that arguing rationally will get me anywhere.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Coming from someone who has just said that I did not deserve "rational argument", that is not just rich, that is Rockefeller rich.

[sabethea.livejournal.com]

From someone who has argued that you cannot use 'reason' as a method of argument, I could say the same.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Please read what I said. You may not believe me, but I am being patient here. I never even began to say or to suggest the words you put in my mouth; WHAT I SAID IS THAT IN CERTAIN CLEARLY DEFINED CIRCUMSTANCES REASON IS NOT A HELP TOWARDS TRUTH. These circumstances are, in ordinary life, pretty rare, and to use reason in deciding, for instance, whether you ought to make a certain expense, or whether and how you ought to complain to a certain person, is right and proper and just and right. Please, please, please, I beg you: read what I said, not what you would like me to have said.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I will add this: that even in circumstances where logic and reason cannot be used as an instrument to find out truth, it can be good to use them merely as a kind of intellectual game, to see how much a certain argument can be developed. Our Alternate Universe fics, for instance, are of this kind, and the best of them hinge on the change of a single feature between the "reality" of canon and the story.

Sometimes, the imaginative use of reason and knowledge in unreal settings can actually prelude to reality. In 1930, a journalist wrote a novel that was later seen to have predicted the whole course of the Japanese-American part of WWII in considerable detail. This man had simply asked himself: given what I know of Japan and of the US, what would happen if...? Conversely, in 1859 a novel was published in South Carolina that predicted, one year ahead of time - and at a time when Lincoln had not yet been heard of - the secession of the South and the war between the states. However, it was grossly and self-aggrandizingly wrong in its predictions of the final outcome: it described a North destroyed in battle and torn apart by further sedition - the very opposite of what happened. That means obviously that the author understood his own people - the South - but was ignorant of what he could expect from the North, and therefore his rational projection of expectations failed him altogether. And to show that it was possible, even then, to get it right, there is Sam Houston's devastating prophecy: "Let me tell you what is coming. After the sacrifice of countless millions of treasure and hundreds of thousands of lives, you may win Southern independence if God be not against you, but I doubt it. I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrine of states rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they begin to move in a given direction, they move with the steady momentum and perseverance of a mighty avalanche; and what I fear is, they will overwhelm the South."

[fpb.livejournal.com]

I never said that any intelligent person exposed to my experience of history should reach my conclusions. In fact, if you asked me whether such is the case, I WOULD MOST EMPHATICALLY DENY IT: I would regard it as an insult to another person's intelligence and experience to say that in the same circumstances he MUST reach the conclusions I did. Any intelligent person can reach any view about any issue; even grossly and ludicrously wrong views. It was not a fool who proposed Colin Renfrew's theory of Indo-European history (to mention one area where I can speak with authority).